"Middle watch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dollars were the wages out of Boston; and then you could see ships handled and run the way they want to be. But that's all past and gone; and nowadays the only thing that flies in an American ship is a belaying-pin. You don't know; you haven't a guess. How would you like to go on deck for your middle watch, fourteen months on end, with all your duty to do and every one's life depending on you, and expect to get a knife ripped into you as you come out of your stateroom, or be sand-bagged as you pass ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... a week ago. I had the deck. We were running before a hard gale from the sou'east, and the Old Man was drunk. It was very thick, and impossible to keep a good lookout. Then, just after two bells in the middle watch, I heard breakers. I had only time to order the wheel up, when we struck. We jammed between two monster rocks, and the masts went by the board, and the ship broke in two. The fore part went to pieces, and ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... the crew, went cheerily to work, and by three bells in the middle watch had hauled up what was left of the shivered mainsail, and hove the ship to under close-reefed main topsail and storm stay-sails; and ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... six hours' rest each alternate night—that is, if he keeps the first watch of the night, 8 to 12 p.m., his resting hours are from 12 to 4. At 4 he has to rise again and scrub decks, whereas if he is in his hammock from 8 to 12, then he keeps the middle watch, returning to his rest at 4. Let us imagine the ship at sea. It is midnight. The bell is struck. Immediately is heard a deep bass voice to and fro the lower deck— "All the starboard watch! Heave out! heave out! heave out! ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... "It is the middle watch," said Wilder, smiling at he observed that Gertrude started at the strange sounds, and sat listening, like a timid doe that catches the note of the hunter's horn. "We seamen are not always musical, as you may judge by the strains of the spokesman on this occasion. There ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... going below at the time, and just as I was about to turn in, I heard a quarter-master sing out to Hardy there, who was junior lieutenant of the ship, and who had the middle watch, that he saw a light going up to the brig's gaff. In five seconds I was on the poop, where I met ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... mailed soldier's plumes) Hear, sounding far, only the iron tread, That echoed through the cloisters of the dead. Dark clouds are wandering o'er the heaven's wide way; Now from the camp, at times, a horse's neigh Breaks on the ear; and on the rampart height The sentinel proclaims the middle watch of night. By the dim taper's solitary ray, 70 Tired, in his tent, the sovereign soldier lay. Meantime, as shadowy dreams arise, he roams 'Mid bright pavilions and imperial domes, Where terraces, and battlements, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... boatswain's pipings tell 'Tis time to bid my dream farewell: Eight bells:—the middle watch is set; Good night, my Strangford!—ne'er forget That far beyond the western sea Is one ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... by Colonel Stewart: "His hour of rising was four or five o'clock, and of going to rest about ten; breakfast was never later than six, and generally nearer to five o'clock. A midshipman or two were always of the party; and I have known him send during the middle watch[36] to invite the little fellows to breakfast with him, when relieved. At table with them, he would enter into their boyish jokes, and be the most youthful of the party. At dinner he invariably had every officer of the ship in their turn, and was both a polite and hospitable ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... with responsibility and the novelty of her situation. Time and again had she said, and even imagined, she should be delighted to fill the very station she then occupied, or to be in charge of a deck, in a "middle watch." In this instance, however, as in so many others, reality did not equal anticipation. She wished to be doing everything, but did not know how to do anything. As for Biddy, she was even worse off than her mistress. A month's experience, or for that matter a twelvemonth's, could ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper |
